Competencies Applied to Teaching an ESOL (English to Speakers of Other Languages) Methods Course Moved to the Online Environment

• In Event: Thursday Roundtable Session 2:30 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Pedagogies for Equitable Access: Reimagining Multilingual Education for an Uncertain World (Table 12)

Abstract

Online learning became a reality for university professors and students in consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. This shift from a face-to-face environment to the online environment was sudden and unexpected. Adaptations to content, assignments, and delivery formats became necessary. Teaching and learning in this new environment present increased responsibilities and challenges but also opportunities to improve existing competencies. Competencies that specify the required skills, attitudes, and knowledge of a competent instructor for face‐to‐face, online, and blended settings have been identified in the literature and used to provide standards for best practices (Grabowski et al., 2016; Klein et al., 2004; Martin et al., 2019). These competencies are divided into five domains: (1) professional foundations; (2) planning and preparation; (3) instructional methods and strategies; (4) assessment and evaluation; and (5) management. Though these competencies are not specific to any field, they can be used to explore the knowledge and skills needed to move from face-to-face teaching environments to online.

In the field of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), methods courses are commonly taught to prepare pre-service teachers to work with an increasing population of multilingual learners (MLs), students who speak languages other than English, in K-12 schools. These courses can be taught face-to-face, online, or hybrid. When the COVID-19 pandemic started in March 2020, many methods courses had to be moved to the online environment quickly and swiftly. This was the case with the experience we report on in this article.

This presentation will share specific instructor competencies based on adaptations made to a face-to-face ESOL Methods course that was moved to the online environment because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This presentation will share examples of practice based on the self-study to show how these competencies were expressed in this course and explain how these constitute model practices for online learning to facilitate engagement and interaction. In addition, this presentation will show how effective instructional strategies in alignment with instructor competences to move from face-to-face teaching environments to online can help facilitate engaging and interactive online community of learners. Facilitating engagement and interaction is one of the most important skills in online teaching where instructor and students are separated in terms of space or time. Instructor’s technological skills are also very important because instructors can provide diverse ways of learning, i.e., in addition to traditional text-based feedback, audio and video feedback can be provided.

Authors

• Larisa A. Olesova, University of Florida

• Luciana C. de Oliveira, Virginia Commonwealth University